Jim Downey (comedian)

James Woodward Downey (born 1952)[2][3] is an American comedy writer and occasional actor. Downey has written for over 30 seasons of Saturday Night Live. This makes him the longest associated writer with the show.[4] He has also been called the "best political humorist alive".[4]

Jim Downey
BornJames Woodward Downey[1]
1952 (age 68–69)
OccupationWriter for Saturday Night Live (SNL), actor
Period1977–present
GenreComedy
Notable worksSNL political satire[2]
RelativesRobert Downey Sr. (brother)
Robert Downey Jr. (nephew)

Early life

Downey is the half-brother of filmmaker Robert Downey Sr., and the uncle of fellow Saturday Night Live alum actor Robert Downey Jr.[5] He attended Harvard University, graduating in 1974 with a degree in Russian.[6] Downey toured Eastern Europe by train after graduating from Harvard, and returned to the US to work for TV. He is believed to be one of the first Harvard Lampoon writers to get a break in TV and the youngest writer on Saturday Night Live.[4]

Writing

While at Harvard, Downey wrote for the Harvard Lampoon where he later became president,[4] at a time when (as Steve O'Donnell said in 1987) "the proliferation of cable and the proliferation of comedy [led] the sensibilities of the Lampoon [to become] a little closer to the sensibilities of the mass media."[7] Downey, a member of that first generation of Lampoon writers to make a career in television, has been credited with playing a role in the shift. In 1976, 100 Years of Harvard Lampoon Parodies was published in magazine format, edited by Downey and Eric Rayman. In 1976, Downey became a writer for Saturday Night Live. He worked on 27 of the show's first 32 seasons, one of the longest tenures in the show's history.[2] He arrived at Saturday Night Live the same week as Bill Murray with whom he ended up sharing an office overlooking 50th Street, but he mostly began writing at SNL with Al Franken, Tom Davis, and Dan Aykroyd.[8] His first stretch as writer for the show ran from 1976 to 1980, culminating in a brief stint as a featured cast member. By the 1979–1980 season, Lorne Michaels had lost both Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi to feature film careers, causing him to look to writers like Downey, Tom Schiller, Dan Aykroyd's brother Peter, Al Franken, Alan Zweibel, and Tom Davis to fill spots as cast members (along with SNL bandleader Paul Shaffer and newcomer Harry Shearer).[9] When Michaels left the show in 1980, so did Downey, along with practically everyone else.

After leaving SNL, Downey became head writer of Late Night with David Letterman for a little over a year, 1982 to 1983, during its formative stages. He returned to SNL in 1984, serving for a while as head writer. When Norm Macdonald began as Weekend Update anchor in the mid-1990s, Downey wrote exclusively for that segment of the show. Downey and Macdonald subsequently became a team, working away from the rest of the cast and crew. They were both fired from the show in 1998 at the request of NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer. Downey believes that it was a result of various jokes on Weekend Update calling O.J. Simpson a murderer; Ohlmeyer was a good friend of Simpson's.[1]

Downey returned to the show in 2000. He continued to write for the show until 2013, pausing only in 2005 to work on a novel.[2] For an October 2000 skit satirizing a recent presidential debate, Downey coined the word "strategery" for then-presidential candidate George W. Bush to say, based on Bush's reputation for difficulty with public speaking. The word soon began to be used in a tongue-in-cheek fashion by members of Bush's own administration, as well as by political pundits on both sides, to refer to the Bush administration's political strategy.[10]

Former SNL Weekend Update anchor Dennis Miller has called him the second most important person in the history of Saturday Night Live, behind only creator Lorne Michaels.[11] In 2013, he retired from Saturday Night Live after the end of 38th season after working part-time, commuting from Upstate New York.[12]

Acting

Although he was only a credited actor on Saturday Night Live for one season, Downey appeared in over 40 sketches from 1977 to 2005, his most notable being parody commercials such as Craig's Travellers Checks, First CityWide Change Bank, and Grayson Moorhead Securities. In 2007, he appeared in a Digital Short titled Andy's Dad, where he portrayed the father of cast member Andy Samberg, and had a romantic relationship with guest star Jonah Hill.

In movies, he is probably best remembered for playing the high school principal who judges the "academic decathlon" in Billy Madison. His brief role in that film included a famous monologue in which he insults the title character, played by Adam Sandler, concluding with the sentence "I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul." The monologue was based on a response Downey often gave to SNL cast member (and fellow Billy Madison cast member) Chris Farley in the SNL writers' room when Farley presented certain ideas.[13]

He appeared in the Norm Macdonald movie Dirty Work as one of the homeless guys. Downey also had a bit part in Paul Thomas Anderson's 2007 film There Will Be Blood, where he plays Al Rose, Little Boston's real estate broker. Anderson's YouTube channel is Al Rose Promotions, a nod to Downey's role. Downey is the second SNL writer to have had a role in a PT Anderson picture, the first being Robert Smigel, who plays Barry Egan's brother-in-law in Punch-Drunk Love.

Political views

Given Downey's role in writing much of the political humor featured on Saturday Night Live during his tenure there, his own political leanings have been a source of speculation. Downey has said that he began his career as "a standard-issue Harvard graduate commie", but later turned into "a conservative Democrat".[14] He is a registered Democratic Party member.[15] In 2008 he expressed his support for then-Presidential-candidate Barack Obama.[15] Nonetheless, his comedic targets have included American politicians across the political spectrum. TV critic Tom Shales, author of the book Live from New York: The Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live,[16] called Downey, and SNL, an "equal opportunity slasher" in political comedy.[17]

Some have called Downey more right-wing than his self-description, including Shales, who described him in 2002 as "a Republican" and "pretty conservative".[17] In the Huffington Post, former SNL head writer Adam McKay called Downey "right wing" and an "Ann Coulter pal".[18]

In early 2008, Downey wrote sketches for SNL mocking the then-ongoing Democratic Presidential Debates, that depicted the news media as biased toward Obama. After the first sketch aired, candidate Hillary Clinton referred to it at the beginning of the next debate. The sketches were controversial; McKay suggested that they were a ploy to favor Republicans, since Clinton would be a weaker candidate than Obama.[18] In response, Downey "said he probably favored Mr. Obama over Mrs. Clinton, but that he genuinely felt she was receiving tougher treatment from the news media". He denied that SNL had intended to help Clinton.[2] According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism the SNL sketches may have prompted tougher news coverage of Obama.[19]

On Obama, he stated, "If I had to describe Obama as a comedy project, I would say, 'Degree of difficulty, 10 point 10.' It’s like being a rock climber looking up at a thousand-foot-high face of solid obsidian, polished and oiled. There’s not a single thing to grab onto—certainly not a flaw or hook that you can caricature.”[14]

Filmography

Television
Year Title Role Notes
1977–80;
1984–98;
2000–13		Saturday Night LiveWriterAlso producer, actor
1981Steve Martin's Best Show EverWriter
1982–84Late Night with David LettermanWriter48 episodes
1984The New ShowWriter5 episodes
1989Kate & AllieSam Phillips3 episodes
2008–09;
2012		Saturday Night Live Weekend Update ThursdayWriter7 episodes
2011Curb Your EnthusiasmBoard Member #1Episode: "Larry vs. Michael J. Fox"
201330 RockDowneyEpisode: "Hogcock!"/"Last Lunch"

Film
Year Title Role Notes
1977The Brain Machine T.V. Announcer
1988Bum Rap Steg
1993Wayne's World 2 Jeff Wong (voice)
1995Billy MadisonPrincipal
1995The Little PatriotAdjutant
1998Dirty WorkMartin, Homeless Guy
2007There Will Be BloodAl Rose

References
  1. Sacks, Mike (2014-06-24). "'SNL's James Downey on Working with Norm Macdonald and Getting Fired for Making Fun of OJ Simpson". Splitsider. Archived from the original on 2015-12-25. Retrieved 2014-06-25.
  2. Itzkoff, Dave (2008-03-03). "'SNL' Writer Narrows the Gap Between Politics and Farce". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
  3. Downey was 55 years old as of early March 2008, according to a profile published at that time in The New York Times
  4. Sacks, Mike (2014). Poking a Dead Frog. New York: Penguin Books. pp. 26–60. ISBN 978-1-101-61327-6.
  5. Tropiano, Stephen (November 2013). Saturday Night Live FAQ: Everything Left to Know About Television's Longest Running Comedy. ISBN 9781480366862.
  6. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2017-12-24. Retrieved 2017-12-23.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. Belkin, Lisa (1987-03-29). "Harvard's Gift to Gag Writing". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
  8. Miller, Dennis; Downey, Jim (2011-12-23). "The Dennis Miller Show" (Interview). Interviewed by Dennis Miller. Archived from the original on 2012-03-29.
  9. Gus Wezerek (2019-12-14). "The 'S.N.L.' Stars Who Lasted, and the Ones Who Flamed Out". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2019-12-14. Retrieved 2019-12-16. Some of the names here will be familiar only to die-hard fans; others, like Murphy, defined what was funny for generations of viewers.
  10. Dana Milbank (April 22, 2001). "Serious 'Strategery' As Rove Launches Elaborate Political Effort, Some See a Nascent Clintonian 'War Room'". Washington Post.
  11. Miller, Dennis; Downey, Jim (2011-11-24). "The Dennis Miller Show" (Interview). Interviewed by Dennis Miller. Archived from the original on 2012-05-05.
  12. Miller, Dennis; Downey, Jim (2013-05-30). "The Dennis Miller Show" (Interview). Interviewed by Dennis Miller. Archived from the original on 2013-08-26.
  13. "Jim Downey interview by Norm Macdonald on The Dennis Miller Show". YouTube. July 16, 2008.
  14. James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales (August 29, 2014). "'SNL' Political Secrets Revealed: Hillary's "Entitlement," the Sketch Obama Killed and the Show's "Karl Rove"". The Hollywood Reporter.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  15. Carter, Bill (2008-03-13). "Pro-Clinton? 'SNL' Says You're Joking". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-03-19.
  16. Shales, Tom; James A. Miller (7 October 2002). Live From New York. ISBN 0-316-78146-0.
  17. Shales, Tom (2002-10-30). "Tracing 'SNL's' political humor". Capitol Gang, CNN (Interview). Interviewed by Al Hunt. Archived from the original on 2008-04-08. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
  18. McKay, Adam (2008-03-05). "Live from New York...Vote Hillary!". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2008-03-03.
  19. Bauder, David (2008-03-04). "A Harder Look at Obama, Post-'SNL'?". Newsday. AP. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
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